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Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

My Lords, I beg to move that this House do not insist on its Amendments Nos. 2, 3, 5, 6 and 10 and do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 10F to 10I in lieu. We are again called on to consider the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill. The issue remains the difference in position between this House and the other place on the appropriate way for the Bill to deal with deaths in custody. Your Lordships were due to consider this Bill last Monday. That debate was postponed while further consideration took place. I am extremely grateful for the time that the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham, Lord Hunt of Wirral, Lord Dholakia and Lord Lee of Trafford, have taken to discuss this issue further with me. This has also been a period in which new Ministers have taken up their posts. The Government have given extremely serious consideration to your Lordships’ concerns. We have explored the different options available with great care. The Government have offered considerable movement in response to your Lordships’ concerns. We have accepted the principle of the offence extending to custody and provided a means in the Bill to bring that about. That is a great deal of movement when measured against the Government’s very clear view when introducing the Bill that the offence should focus on health and safety duties and not apply to the discharge of specific public responsibilities. Your Lordships have therefore secured a very considerable compromise by the Government. Since that was adopted in the other place, your Lordships have asked the Government to reconsider the position twice. We have done so, and we have given careful thought in doing so. My discussions with noble Lords will, I hope, have demonstrated how seriously we have taken the issue, and that we have been prepared to look at the range of options. Nevertheless, there comes a point at which, as a responsible Government, we must say that we have gone as far as we can. Following careful reflection, the Government have concluded that the position adopted in the other place is as far as it is right for the Bill to go. Strong concerns have been raised by your Lordships on the issue of deaths in custody. The Government have taken those concerns seriously and have sought to steer a path between those who wish to see the offence extended and the Government’s view that any such extension must be delayed while the implications of the lifting of Crown immunity in practice are considered. There are considerable uncertainties involved in applying the new offence to Crown bodies. The prosecution of government departments represents uncharted territory and there will inevitably be difficult questions about how exactly that will work in practice, not least what the consequences will be for extending the criminal law to the organisation and activity of very significant public functions. The Bill steers a careful path and sets out a number of areas where the offence will apply across the board, private and public sector, Crown and non-Crown alike. These cover key responsibilities towards employees and in the occupation of premises, and other important health and safety duties in the provision of services and the use of plant and equipment. Your Lordships’ House and the other place have both recognised that the exercise of some public functions must stand outside this offence. The Government have recognised the very strongly held concerns of a number of your Lordships on the issue of deaths in custody and have provided a means in the Bill for addressing them. In doing so, we have recognised the principle of extending the offence beyond the traditional ambit of health and safety matters to wider concerns. That is very considerable movement. The arguments since put by your Lordships have rightly caused the Government to go back and consider their position, but we have reached the conclusion that it is not right to go further. That position is accepted by the other place, and I urge your Lordships to accept the clear insistence of the other place. Before sitting down, let me bring two matters to your Lordships’ attention. Noble Lords will recall that following the concerns raised on deaths in custody in the context of this Bill, the Government offered to put the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman on a statutory footing. I am pleased to inform your Lordships that a criminal justice Bill was introduced in the other place on 26 June and will give effect to that. I also want to draw your Lordships’ attention to changes made to the amendments in lieu. The first is to address a point raised in the other place by the right honourable gentleman, Douglas Hogg. He was concerned about the inclusion of scope in subsection (2) of the proposed power to specify exceptions to the forms of custody to which the offence would extend. As we wish to address that concern, the scope to specify exceptions has been removed. Moreover, changes have been made to make it clear that the definition of ““premises”” in subsection (1) of the power is the same definition as already contained in Clause 2. That definition will now appear in the wider interpretation clause inserted by other amendments made in your Lordships’ House and already accepted by the other place. There is much that is good in this Bill. It will set out a new basis for holding organisations to account for gross corporate negligence. The identification principle will no longer present an obstacle to prosecution in such cases. The Bill will usher in a new type of sentence for organisations—the publicity order. In passing the Bill, Parliament will send out a clear message that the law will bear down hard on those organisations that do not take their health and safety responsibilities seriously. The Bill has come a long way—not just in discussion in this place and the other place, but in a long journey from a clear need to reform the law being identified to this House standing on the threshold of putting a new offence on a statutory footing. I urge this House to take that final step today. Moved, That this House do not insist on its Amendments Nos. 2, 3, 5, 6 and 10 and do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 10F to 10I in lieu.—(Baroness Ashton of Upholland.)